PCMA’s Annual Convention was Proof Positive New Orleans is More Ready than Ever
01/21/2009
Under the expansive roof of the Superdome on the playing field of the New Orleans Saints, New Orleans music royalty entertained the group including the famed Neville family and the Soul Queen of New Orleans, Irma Thomas, while 29 restaurants offered tastes of their signature cuisines. As the party ended, the celebrants “second-lined” out in fine New Orleans tradition, waving white handkerchiefs over their head as they loaded the shuttles to their respective hotels.
At the Convention Center, the lobby was sprinkled with mimes, jugglers and stilt walkers from the streets of New Orleans which were perfect complements to the new decorative banner program the Center recently installed. The large banners throughout the lobby feature iconic New Orleans images of art, music, food, history and architecture and are the first phase of larger way-finding system planned for the Center in 2009. Over the past 12 months preparing for PCMA, the Center has transformed itself into having more of a hotel attitude in both form and function. One of the most obvious changes to clients who have used the Center are the 17 furniture pods throughout the main lobby and meeting room levels where attendees can gather to network or relax.
Additional aesthetic, technological and functional upgrades are planned for 2009 totaling $12 million. The meeting planner will enjoy additional opportunities to reduce cost and generate revenue with the new additions. A 10 gigabyte internet backbone will be one of the main features that will provide the meeting planner with unlimited technological opportunities to extend programming to attendees and exhibitors. There will be only three Centers in the country that will feature such a powerful system. The Centers two ballrooms, both in excess of 30,000 square feet, will be renovated, two executive cyber cafés will open, and a card-key system will be installed to all 140 meeting rooms among other improvements.
Attendees of PCMA’s Annual Meeting could not have left New Orleans without knowing that the City has never been more ready to conduct meetings and conventions. Most of the 20,000 hotel rooms, all within walking distance of the Center, have been totally renovated in the last 4 years. Almost 3,000 hotel rooms are in the immediate vicinity of the Center providing the meeting planner a full range of options for their attendees.
The recognition that New Orleans remains one of the most authentic cities in America was apparent in casual conversations during the meeting. The food, the music, the people and the culture cannot be replicated and makes for the perfect meeting destination when paired with the necessary facilities of exhibit space, meeting rooms and hotel rooms.
There is little doubt that the predicted dividends from hosting PCMA’s Annual Meeting will not be realized. New Orleans is more ready than it ever has been.
Political strategist James Carville gives a keynote address at PCMA
Irvin Mayfield and his New Orleans Jazz Orchestra entertains the PCMA crowd
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About the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center
With 1.1 million square feet of contiguous exhibit space, an award winning staff and first class amenities, the New Orleans Ernest N. Morial Convention Center (NOMCC) is the sixth largest convention center in the nation and a consistent Top 10 host of the largest number of conventions and tradeshows annually. A leading rainmaker of the city’s hospitality industry, NOMCC event activity has produced $39.12 billion in economic impact since its 1985 opening, including $2.19 billion in new tax revenue.
